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Some Aspects of Indian Culture
geography is found written in this Prākrit. While referring to this Jain Māhārāļțrı by name, the old Grammarians did not mean to say that it was a different Prakrit but it was the modern scholars who differentiated it from the Māhārāştri in the sense that there was found a little change in the Mābāsāștri used in the Svetāṁbara Jain works and this justified them to give it the name of Jain Māhārāștri. Paumacariya, Upadeśamala, Samardiccakaha and Supasanahacariya are some of the Jain works written in this Prakrit.
The lauguage of the works of the Digambara Jains is Jain Saurasenj. Pravacanasara, Dravyasangraha etc. are written in this Prākrit. It has got mixed characteristics of Ardhamagadhi employed in the Svetambara Jain canon and Saurasen referred to by Prakrit Grammarians.
A pabhramga has been used in India for anything differing from Sanskrit as the standard of correct speech or for spoken languages as distinct from literary Prākiit, with Āryan as well as Non-Aryan languages included or as a literary form of any such varnacular. Apabhramsa was used as a medium for bardic poetry from Bengal in the East to Rajputānā in the West. Voluminous epics such as Mahapurāna etc. are available in Apabhramga. It would be a mistake to believe that there was no secular literature in Apabhramga as is now proved by the publication of the Sandesarasaka. Its regional varieties are seen in the Räsas in western India and in the works of Vidyāpati in the east. It is this Apabhramsa language wherein lies concealed the key to the origin and development of mediaeval languages. Indications of its use are found in the dramas such as Vikramoryasiya, Dharmabhyuda ya etc; in Harivansa Purana, Paumacariya and others and in Bhavissayattakahä, Karakanducariyam etc., etc. Earlier authorities recognize there varieties of Apabhrarsa, namely, Vrācada, Nāgara and Upanāgara. The only literary Apabhramša described in detail by the grammarians is the Nāgara which appears to have belonged to Gujarat. Vrācada which is generally associated with Sindh, was comparatively more arcbaic. Hemacandra has preserved many quotations from the Apabhramsa literature of the earlier centuries. A perusal of them makes it clear that the literature of the time was mythological, religious, didactic, erotic and heroic.
As stated by the late Dr. K. M. Munshi in his "Gujarat and Its Literature", “Old Gujarati is the language spoken in Gujarata since 1088 A.D. as we find the earliest reference to it in Bilhana's Vikramankadevacarita. Hemacandra had it ia mind too when in Kavyānuśà sana he mentioned the gramya or the vulgar variety possessing literature of its own as distinguished from Apabhramga proper. Its earliest available literature which dates back to the twelfth century clearly indicates pre-existing literature. Old Gujarāti exhibits a progressive tendency to become acalytic. It develops a phonetic change by which a double consonant is simplified and the preceding vowel lengthened. The indistinctly pronounced vowel at the beginning of a word is dropped. A positive tendency to substitute the Apabhramsa form of words by its Sanskrit equivalent comes into existence pointing out that Old Gujarāti was developing into
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